The explosive growth in digital content and e-commerce in the nineties and the present decade has been accompanied by a number of systems and corresponding processes for storing, managing and retrieving content in various electronic formats and in a variety of ways. Storing and managing all types of content, including documents, images, video, audio and the like, typically occurs inside of a content management application incorporating some type of a database, and which may be operated in a private network or on the Internet. With existing systems, retrieving the digital content from oneself or another content owner typically requires a person either to search for a document on a personal computer, a private network or the Internet, or to provide contact information (an Internet address, email address or instant message identifier) to the content owner so that the digital content can be delivered, received and enjoyed by that person.
Likewise, commercial transactions on the Internet or over the phone typically occur in a one-to-one setting in which a buyer must conduct a transaction on a seller's own website or by speaking to a live operator. When doing so, the buyer must enter, re-enter or store a significant amount of personal information. Moreover, when a consumer sees something outside the Internet, like a seller's offline advertisement, such as a billboard, magazine or elsewhere, the consumer must almost always visit the Internet, place a voice telephone call, or visit a seller's physical site. In many cases the buyer is repeatedly shopping from the same seller and repeating many of the same time-consuming steps to conduct a transaction. Another example of this is live music being rendered during a concert. The live music has high relevance to fans of the performing artist while the live music is being played, but afterwards, or the next morning, a user may forget to go to the performing artist's web site to learn about content opportunities associated with the concert. The separation of the user from the live music itself causes the user to lose interest in the live content or associated content.
At the same time as the amount of content and e-commerce expands dramatically, people are increasingly relying on mobile devices as a primary means to communicate via voice, text, Internet enabled browsers or Internet enabled services like instant messaging. It can be appreciated that mobile devices are generally used because they are portable and convenient, and they are becoming near ubiquitous in their adoption by people all over the world. Yet, mobile devices, such as mobile phones, are often limited in their ability to navigate, retrieve and act on content or other data due to their portability, and corresponding limited input interface and storage capacities. With the enormous growth in both content availability and e-commerce, there is thus an emerging need on the part of content owners and commerce providers to obtain the content or conduct a transaction in a simple, convenient, accurate and cost effective way.
Some existing services seek to connect requests for digital content or data to the direct delivery of content or data to the mobile device for immediate use or action, which the user may or may not be ready to take. Thus, there is an inherent disconnect in such systems between what the user may want and the ultimate timing of the delivery of the content by the content owner. In addition, these services lack an efficient way to communicate a request for specific information about which the user has just learned. Two main problems thus present themselves with respect to such existing systems. First, such systems are inefficient because they are overloaded with unwanted or irrelevant amounts of digital content or data. Second, such systems are dramatically limited in terms of the actions that a user may take with respect to such digital content or data.
Additionally, today's user interfaces that are presented to users on most mobile devices are not adequate for easy and complete free form text entries. Most mobile devices have a twelve digit number pad which is cumbersome to the user when the user is faced with typing in text like web addresses, email addresses, or other contact information. Consequently, mobile users have difficulty capturing information quickly and completely in a text form on their mobile device. In turn, passing relevant information from the user's mobile phone along to friends or other contacts is not easy and similarly, taking other action with respect to the information, such as buying a physical or digital product or service, is a difficult process if such other action is even possible for the user.
Thus, there is a need for an improved method for (a) a user to request and obtain digital content or data in which the user knows she is interested, e.g., where the user is present at a live performance or event in real time, (b) to store the requested digital content or data for immediate or later access by the user, and (c) to allow the user to take immediate or later action against the digital content or data. Likewise, owners of the digital content or data are currently in need of improved ways to track requests for, and use of, such digital content or data. Further, owners of digital content or data are in need of ways to enable new methods for having targeted users take action against such digital content or data in ways that make more sense for users. These and other disadvantages of existing content management systems have thus led to an overall need for a new architecture for managing content that better aligns the interests of content owners with the interests of content consumers, and vice versa.